World champion, then Super Rugby champion, he lit up the rugby world between 2015 and 2017. His support was electric, his goose step divine, his gestures extraordinary and his game intelligence could have made him an international fly-half. Before everything collapsed.
After just these few lines, you will probably have already recognized Nehe Milner-Skudder. It must be said that in his “prime”, the boy of Maori origin made his mark: 12 tries in 13 selections, crazy gestures, a title of world revelation of the year 2015 and a “hype” that made him the kind of player for whom one could get up very early on Saturday morning.
At that moment, Skudz is a little bit like Shaun Johnson is with the Auckland Warriors, at the neighboring Thirty-Six: everything he does seems magical, out of time. Every time he touches the ball, something happens, he breaks the knees of all the defenders as soon as he has 2 meters of field and even the most capricious rebounds always end up falling back into his hands.
In short, a genius who came out of nowhere at the start of 2015, to the great delight of the Hurricanes, then the All Blacks, then rugby, quite simply. But never that of the RCT.
”I was crying on the ground”: Nehe Milner-Skudder recounts her journey through the desertBecause Milner-Skudder (1m80 for 90kg) was quickly not spared from injuries. Particularly to the shoulder, in 2016 and 2018, which made him hit rock bottom, to the point of never again finding the level of his professional debut, nor even a semblance of regularity. Expert in relaunching former big names when no one believed in it anymore, Mourad Boudjellal will then try his last gamble at the head of the RCT and sign the All Black, who is coming off a blank year, in 2019.
Except that while summer and the arrival of the child from Manawatu are supposed to approach, his shoulder is not really repaired and will never withstand the shock of the rough Top 14. “NMS” knows this, lets the RCT know, who decides to let him get treatment and postpone his arrival until the following year. Covid comes along and the die is cast: the magician will never come to Toulon.
VIDEO – BRISBANE 10s: Nehe Milner-Skudder makes love to RCT defenseSince then, Milner-Skudder has attempted many comebacks, whether in Super Rugby with the Highlanders (1 match in 2020), in Bunning NPC and even in Major League, where he was still US champion while starting at full-back. But he was never as incisive as in the past, when his shoulder, which he protected as much as possible from shocks, always seemed to be a source of concern for him.
Having dabbled in just about everything during his career, from XV to XIII, including rugby 10 and touch, Milner-Skudder, now 33, has not set foot on a professional pitch since 2022. The last time he heard, he was wandering wherever the rugby opportunities dear to his heart took him, and for example played for a Waikato XIII selection recently. Or the destiny of a shooting star…
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